Her Side Funnies

So, some people wonder how Ken and I have stayed married so happily for so long.  It’s easy.  Whenever we come across a problem we do not agree on, we stop and move to something else that we do agree on.  Then, we re-visit the problem later.  That’s how a bedroom on the ground floor ended up not having door handles for 10, yes 10, years.  That’s also how our second floor balcony was left rail-less for the same period of time.

It is with relief that I can now say, “Welcome to our patio,” without adding, “Please do not fall off of it.”

Unfortunately, on the day I took the photo, I had removed the wreath which ordinarily graces the gap beneath the arched window at the peak of the roof line.  Still, it shows the winning railing choice after a decade long battle over designs.  We went through fancy ideas, ornate ideas, wooden ideas, plexiglass ideas, curved-and-extended ideas, and with each idea, one or the other Read the rest of this post »

Ken’s from the city.  He thought when I said I wanted fertilizer for the flower gardens that I meant for him to buy a bag of the stuff at the local garden center.  Silly Ken.

In the world of chickens, the Buff Orpington variety are big, fat hens that are hardy and lay brown eggs.  They are the Rolls Royce of chickens–in my humble opinion.  There are other breeds which are equally enchanting, but my personal pick are the Buffs.  They are docile and fun to watch.  We got them at the end of February and they promptly became dining room fixtures. 

Ken would come down from work for lunch and I would find him gazing into the make-shift water trough we were using to house the newly hatched chicks.  Soon, they exceeded my relaxed approach to housekeeping (with feathers and dust flying everywhere) and they had to be booted into the outdoor shed.  The cold nights made us nervous a couple of times, but the chicks did fine and continued to grow under the watchful eye of the dingo pup.  Read the rest of this post »

To see a complete index of slipforming posts, click here.  For an index of comical posts, click here.

Colorado tax lien sales are a mystery to a lot of people.  For that reason, I took my freshly-turned-18-year-old out of school to attend her first tax lien sale in nearby Montrose County.  She was wide-eyed at the process and the people.  She returned to school and bragged to her high school civics teacher that she had done something “civic” during her absence.  She now knew about tax liens.  The teacher requested that I come to class and share the lesson with the other students.  I agreed, but struggled with how to put the enormous importance of tax lien sales into a lesson that a high school student would understand.

This Chinese restaurant in our local small town did not pay their taxes of $16,000.  A buyer who pays this amount for three years can apply for the deed to the property.  At present, this concept has benefits and drawbacks.

I gathered some facts and figures for the 28 students.  Dry statistics lose audiences, so I took a few pages of the tax lien along.  I created alphabetical jobs (26 occupations), plus one retiree, and one unemployed person.   I also grabbed some “Life” game cards with houses on them, and divided them into similar ratios as we have in our county, i.e., there are more mobile homes than mansions, and only a few very large properties. Read the rest of this post »

For a complete index of Dani’s comical posts, click here.

I was busy trying to finish a building project that had consumed the garage bay, forcing me to leave my car outside, which, considering the condition of the fences, had the ever-present risk that I would find a goat on top of it. This is always a decidedly unhappy discovery.

Speaking of goats, I took several to the sale.  I needed Ben’s help and he ended up getting dragged halfway down the steep, rock-covered hillside leading to our house.  Poor kid.  I told him to grab the goat by a hind leg and when he did, the goat somehow wheeled around and kicked him in the crotch in some sort of goat karate move that surprised both Ben and me.  (I, for one, didn’t know the goats were studying karate.)  

The goat pictured above is a blue-collared (blue belt) in karate and is giving “the submit-or-I’ll-embarrass-you” stare.  She can flip, kick and humble an owner in less than eight seconds.  True black-collared goats can leave an owner wishing they were dead. Read the rest of this post »

This post follows “Brandy swamp juice at day 60.”  To see that post, click here.

Wow, wow, and wow!  For the last 90 days, I have had two gallon jars of cheap vodka (the cheapest I could find) fermenting with fruit that was falling from the trees.  I have endured ridicule, taunting, threats of jail time if I poisoned anyone, and skepticism that the new “hobby” would be a disaster.  Now, the verdict is in.  I have had a chance to taste the wicked brew and, oh boy,  was I surprised!   Look who’s laughing now!

First, let me go back a little bit for those of you hitting this blog out of order from the first two.  I had two full trees full of fruit that were going to waste.  I had fed the family all the fruit products I could concoct, and needed another fresh usage.  I went online to get suggestions and found apricot leather (too much work with the risk of my kids hating it), cookies (didn’t use a tree full of fruit) and then I saw a homemade brandy site.  Hmph, I thought, I’m not much of a brandy drinker, but the labor looked easy – pick fruit, add sugar and cheap vodka, put in gallon jars and turn once a day for three months.  I could handle that – and the shelf-life was very good.  Read the rest of this post »